Over time, our school systems have changed dramatically. From having comprehensive schools where we stream out students on their abilities and future goals, we now have this notion of inclusive education where strive to meet all of the students’ needs under one classroom. This raises an important topic of preconceived notions and biases. In the past, we would stream students based on their abilities. However, we never pushed them to reach other potentials. We singled them out to a few strengths and they kept working towards those, never being challenged by their weaknesses. Today, especially in Alberta Education, we work towards competencies rather than memorizing facts. Of course while there will still be stronger and weaker students, we can plan and scaffold their learning to their highest potential and work with them to achieve the most difficult tasks.

 

It is very easy to jump to conclusions with students from a single incident. Say a student has an accent. We may automatically conclude they are an ELL (English Language Learner). Or if a gifted student all of a sudden fails an exam, we may conclude that something tragic is happening at home or with friends. Being a reflective educator will help us deal with these preconceived notions. One way to be reflective is by creating learner profiles at the beginning of the semester and continue doing so throughout. In the profile we can track strengths, weaknesses, behaviours, preferences, learning styles, etc. Grades can also be monitored. This allows us to better understand our learners and can help us plan for lessons and assignments for students. Especially with inclusive education, we will need to be experts at adapting and differentiating our instruction.

 

Prior to our in class discussion we were asked to complete an implicit association test. I chose the topic of gender. My results suggested that I have a moderate bias towards associating men with science and women with humanities. Although I would like to consider myself indifferent towards this, my results suggested otherwise. There are other quizzes to test your biases including topics such as age, sexuality, race, and weight. I would encourage myself and others to participate in more of these quizzes to test our biases and be conscious of them when dealing with students. Another resource I found has various articles on improving relationships between teachers and students. Some articles talk about positive role models, the dos and don’ts of teaching, when certain strategies will work, etc. This is a very useful tool that I could refer to when spending time on reflection. I want to be the best teacher I can be so in times of conflict and trouble, it is best to refer to reliable sources for help. These articles are published by PhD students. The last resource I found is a blog on “What is Implicit Bias, and How Might it Affect Teachers and Students”. This post provides a lot of insight on individuating which is defined as “gathering specific information about a person, so that the particulars of that person replace generic notions based on group membership” (Quintero, 2014). The blog offers different strategies to help mitigate biases that could lead to severe outcomes in the classroom.